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If you want to travel and have saved up, I’d suggest doing it sooner rather than later. Not sure if job market is robust now for you to hang around. If your heart tells you to pack your bag, I’d listen to it. Your perspectives will probably change after your travels

Hey Brian,

Thanks for your advice. Have a follow up question to this. Just quit the job. Want to go into corporate development / strategy at a big company. A more operational role. In terms of looking for a job should I try getting something straight away, or would it look OK to go travelling for several months and then start looking? I figure that after I come back from travels, I can always say I quit my job because I wanted to travel, and figure out what I really wanted to do etc.

Thanks,

Vincent

Yes, I’ve seen other people who left early have a difficult time explaining it. If it’s a non-IB/PE role then it will be easier and it may be a better idea to quit right away.

In short: if you want to continue in IB / PE, stay and minimize your workload, otherwise wait for your bonus and then quit.

Many thanks for the advice. Is quitting (after I get my bonus) a bad idea because it will be difficult explaining why I left to recruiters? Will they care though? If it is a non investment banking / private equity role I am interviewing for (am not genuinely interested in these fields anymore) I can always say I left because the hours were too intense and the work was not for me. Plus I would have all my time to look for a new job that i genuinely want to do (maybe start up or corporate development). Or is it still a bad idea? If they are going to fire me in September I would rather go on my own terms…Would be interesting to hear your viewpoint.

Obviously wait until your bonus, but don’t quit unless you get something else lined up first. So just shift to looking for other jobs full-time and do the bare minimum to squeak by at work.

It sounds like your job is beyond repair and ordinarily I would recommend quitting, but that can cause problems when you go to recruit if you quit early.

For meeting with the female MD, don’t tell her the truth or she will tell the others. Just act like you’re trying to improve, and only indicate otherwise when you are about to leave.

If this were a normal company or a start-up I would have totally different advice, but in finance people are crazy so you have to roll with the punches and play the game.

That was meant to be sarcastic (as were other comments above).

But there is truth to it in that yes, you have to value work / money / business over having a social life in finance. Maybe not as extreme as described here.